


Reunion

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-07
Updated: 2010-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post AU apocalypse, an old friend of Sam's from Stanford runs into Sam and Dean at a gas station.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sam's birthday comment fic meme at [](http://community.livejournal.com/ohsam/profile)[ **ohsam**](http://community.livejournal.com/ohsam/)  . Prompt from [](http://kalliel.livejournal.com/profile)[ **kalliel**](http://kalliel.livejournal.com/)  : "After a narrowly averted apocalypse, an old friend from Stanford runs into Sam Winchester at a gas station.  He is surprised/disturbed by what he sees."

Gas is three cents cheaper here than right in town, and Jed's stipend is already pretty strained by the conference, so he pulls up the rental at the pump, behind a gleaming, lovingly preserved classic car that would've made Liz's eyes pop out if she'd been with him. The guy filling her up has his back to him. He's strikingly tall, and something about the height and the slight slump of his shoulders and the way ends of hair stick out in all directions from a neglected haircut is familiar. Then he half turns, and Jed sees his profile and exclaims "Sam!" God, it's the mysterious vanishing Sam Winchester.

The guy jerks, startled, and turns round all the way and for a moment Jed thinks he’s made a mistake after all, because this guy isn’t anything like Sam. There’s an ugly scar twisting across his cheek and vanishing under the patch that covers his right eye, and the expression in his other eye is almost worse. Jed’s already moving towards him, though, and the guy is squinting a bit, and finally he says “Jed?” and it’s Sam’s voice all right, though he sure doesn’t sound happy to see him, more like hostile or, weirdly, frightened.

It’s maybe a mercy that Jed has spent the last two days making small talk with the senior professors who have life and death power over his career, because the filters between his brain and his mouth are in pretty good shape right now and he doesn’t actually say “God, Sam, what happened to you?” While his brain is fishing for a better option, Sam puts on this social smile that’s as far from the old Sam’s grin as the grim wariness it’s replacing and he says in a voice that matches the smile, all patently fake ease, “Jed, man, it’s been ages, what brings you to this neck of the woods?” Jed can hear himself babbling a bit as he explains in too many words about grad school and the conference and the paper he’s giving, and he’s so busy concentrating on not looking at the scar or the eyepatch or anything, really, that he doesn’t even notice that another man has come up behind him, carrying a bag from the gas station’s convenience store, till the guy is walking past him towards Sam. Sam shoots a look at the new guy and the man moves next to him and a bit in front of him, too close and kind of belligerent, like a bodyguard or a jealous boyfriend. He’s inches shorter than Sam, and his face is unscarred and immoderately good-looking, but he looks dangerous.

“Jed,” says Sam, “this is my brother Dean. Dean, this is Jed Henderson. We knew each other at Stanford.” Jed’s a bit stuck on the “brother,” first because of the bodyguard/boyfriend thing, and second because brother? Sam Winchester? The man without a past, who had materialized on the Stanford campus with so little backstory that if he weren’t so damn happy and open (apart from how no one ever knew shit about him) you’d think he was some junior mobster in witness protection. But Jed shakes Dean’s hand – the guy doesn’t smile -- and tries valiantly to get through this encounter, though it’s getting more awkward by the second.

“Yeah,” he says, “Sam and I were in a few Latin courses together. Your brother is one amazing Latinist. I was the Classics major, but, man, he ran rings around me.” That almost seems to lighten the Dean guy up a bit, because he kind of pokes at Sam with his elbow and says, “You took Latin at Stanford, Sammy? What, you were homesick or something?” But Sam doesn’t even glance at his brother. He’s staring at Jed with his one eye and this weirdly intense look and he says, “Yeah, Dean, Latin, you know, like _Christus, Christi, Christo, Christum, Christo_.” And that’s pretty bizarre, because why on earth is Sam reciting the second declension, and why is he using the name of Christ to do it? But it’s almost like Sam relaxes a bit then, and he leans back on the car and smiles at Jed almost like he used to and asks him what the paper he’s giving at the conference is about.

It's about prophecy and irony in the _Thebaid_ , and Jed is launching into all its glorious detail and forgetting that he's at a gas station having the most awkward mini college reunion of his life when the Dean guy interrupts with "What the fuck is the _Thebaid_?" And Jed starts to backtrack and explain that it's a Latin epic, later than Virgil, and that it's about this fated, tragic contest between two doomed brothers, the sons of Oedipus. And suddenly Sam is laughing, laughing so much that he can't talk and he has to wave his hand helplessly at Dean and Jed while they watch him crack up. There's a hysterical edge to it, and Jed can't see what on earth is funny about a gloomy gorefest in Latin hexameters, but Sam looks like Sam, like he used to laugh himself weak and breathless over dorky Latin jokes at Stanford. And Dean is staring at his brother, and it's like he's a bit outraged and bit worried, but Jed thinks he can also see some of that same sudden recognition -- this is _Sam_ \-- that he can feel on his own face.

Finally Dean says, "Come on, Sam, we need to get going," and he shakes Jed's hand again and says "It was nice to meet you," and he actually sounds like he might mean it. Sam says "Yeah, man, good to see you again," and they get in the car and drive off and it occurs to Jed that he didn't ask Sam a single question. Later on he calls Liz and tells her about the Sam Winchester sighting and she peppers him with questions, but all he can say is “He didn’t say much.” 


End file.
